Shore erosion, years of litter impacting Clermont’s waterfront

Bikes & Boards is officially gone from Clermont’s Waterfront Park, but the issue of glass in the sand that Bikes & Boards’ Tim Engle brought to public attention remains.

During the protracted and ultimately unsuccessful negotiations for a new lease agreement with the popular waterfront rental business, the city did obtain an estimate of the cost of remediating the glass problem. Titled “Rough Order of Magnitude Cost Estimate Dredging Bikes and Boards,” the figure was $18,192.

City manager Darren Gray figures “if we did it ourself we could probably do it for half, though we’d still need to do the permitting.”

“I plan to bring it up in the budget workshops,” he adds.

The area behind Bikes & Boards is not a part of the city’s official, licensed swim area, but people (and sometimes pets) do swim there.

According to Gray the estimate was prepared so that if council was receptive to Engle’s request for a 10-year lease, instead of the 3-year lease he had been offered, they would have a better understanding of the costs involved. Engle was on the agenda for the May 23 council meeting. He was a no-show, so council voted to no longer rent to him at that location. And according to Gray, the city won’t be renting to anyone else at the former Bikes & Boards location either, at least not until it can be determined what impact the city’s master redevelopment plan will have on Waterfront Park.